Mike Figgis calls his behind-the-scenes chronicle “Megadoc,” but he might as well have titled it “LaBeouf vs Coppola.”
The film, which premiered at Venice yesterday, peels back the curtain on Coppola’s $120M gamble, “Megalopolis,” referred to by some online hoodlums as “Megaflopolis.”
The doc seems to delight in the chaos. The logistics, before, and during production, must have been a total nightmare to experience for cast and crew. Coppola, financing his own dream project, comes off as a self-aggrandizing weirdo, but the scenes most will be taking away from the doc is the epic tug-of-war between Coppola and Shia LaBeouf.
LaBeouf, at first in total glee over being cast in Coppola’s film — since, in his own words, he had become “Hollywood persona non grata” — is both a catastrophe for ‘Megalopolis’ and a total gift for Figgis and “Megadoc.” He says it himself: he had no business being in this movie, describing his status in Hollywood as “nuclear.” He wasn’t exaggerating. The arrests, the lawsuits, the meltdowns. We learn that Jon Voight, part guardian angel, slipped LaBeouf into Coppola’s ensemble, and suddenly the outcast had a role.
LaBeouf arrives trembling, convinced he’d be fired within days, and then immediately starts fighting with Coppola.
The actor who least belongs there is also the one who gives Figgis the richest material. LaBeouf frets over blocking, whines about tape marks on the floor “inhibiting” his acting, and turns every Coppola demand into an epic argument. Coppola, tries to persuade, then pleads, then finally explodes. “I know what I’m talking about!” he furiously shouts. LaBeouf refuses, Coppola storms to his trailer to direct the rest of the day’s shoot by remote control. It’s delightful and farcical Cinema verité.
There are apologies, too, the kind that arrive in the middle of the night. Coppola sends an email, acknowledging LaBeouf’s performance while confessing they’ll never see the world the same way. LaBeouf, half-amused, half-wounded, recounts the story to Figgis in melancholic mode. He knows he was trouble. He believes the end result is that he gave Coppola something the film couldn’t have sparked otherwise.
Watching “Megadoc,” you don’t quite know whether to laugh or to wince. Figgis doesn’t shy away either. He seems to be shooting everything. However, it’s the LaBeouf and Coppola feud that steals the show, much like “Megalopolis” itself, it’s overblown, maddening, absurd, ambitious, and impossible to look away from.